No, seriously...

When I said I was selling my television, I wasn't kidding. I informed my cable provider that this month's payment would be my last. Part of the reason is the less-than-stellar internet service, which costs just as much now - if not more - than it did when cable internet became available about 6 years ago. But mostly it's the fact that the vast majority of television programming is a waste of time. I knew that, of course, even before I made my first new television purchase two years ago (I did buy a TV back in 1996 when I lived in Japan so I could watch game shows where half naked women did dishes, but that was special). My intention was to use the cable for movies, PBS, and BookTV, perhaps the occasional documentary. BookTV was cancelled a few months back, PBS is avilable without cable, and the movie selection, even with HBO, blows monkey cock. With all the movies available on any given day, I have watched Boogie Nights three times this month.

In the past month I found myself vegging out to a show on alien abductions, one on Nostradamus, and another on psychic spies, and that was the History Channel. And while you might think a TV is necessary for all the "comedy gold" it provides, I've seen enough to have plenty of jokes for years to come - it's not like TV actually changes, and besides, most jokes about popular TV shows of any decade become hack very quickly. If I were George Carlin and could be pretty sure I'd beat everyone else to the small screen with that material, I might reconsider, but even so, there's something depressing about the fact that so many people watch crap that even hack TV jokes always have some currency.

CNN and FOX and every other news channel have been nothing more than frantic, incoherent versions of The Weather Channel for the last six weeks, as if nothing else required our attention. From the time drunks hit Denny's to when Larry King wraps up, it's hurricanes. How about the weather in Fallujah?

Bomby. Back to you, Wolf.

Then there's the sheer cost. I remember when cable was new - the idea was that you'd pay a small fee to watch programming without commercials. Now we pay for the privelege of seeing more commercials than ever. My TV, internet, and Netflix charges add up to over $1600/year, money I now need for gas.

Katrina

I'm selling my television.

The Mexican army has sent people and supplies into Texas to help hurricane evacuees. That says something about our "Empire" when we don't have the resources to take care of our own. While the administration is busy fighting a "war" it can't win in the middle east, Americans at home suffer.

It's high time this country - and the world, for that matter - reconsidered its dependence on fossil fuels. It's not just gasoline. Plastics, vinyls, paints, and too many other products to mention are oil-based.

FEMA does not want the media showing pictures of the dead in N.O. When we're more concerned about our image than about the substance of our actions, it's time to roll some heads. The media treats Americans like babies when it doesn't show us the reality of what's happening in Louisiana, or Iraq, or anywhere else. How many times have you seen a news channel hype a "disturbing video" of a tragedy, disaster, or crime, only to announce that they will not show certain portions because they're "too gruesome?" It's so condescending and insulting I could scream. I'm not 12. I'm a property-owning, tax-paying American adult.

This country becomes more infantile and moralizing by the day. I only hope that the revolution begins before I die. I won't be able to watch it, as I won't own a TV, but it probably won't be televised anyway.

Sorry the above was void of jokes. Here's one:

If you're going to subject everyone around you to your cell-phone conversations, the least you can do is call a 1-900 number.

What would a real president do?

So, the Louisiana Purchase is in the news again...

My thoughts on this whole Katrina mess are pretty well summed up by David Brooks. I will add that the media "coverage" yesterday was shameful - all the bobble-heads smiling and pointing out what a great job everyone's doing. That's the line the White House handed them, and that's the line they're regurgitating. Pussies. Yes, people are doing selfless and heroic deeds, but the spin being put on this is disgusting. Already the weepy montage is in full effect, complete with elderly, mostly black, faces in shock, babies, and plenty of praying and crosses. I watched Anderson Cooper yesterday imply, as did other "journalists," that it is the New Orleans residents' own fault they didn't heed the evacuation order. Hey Anderson, go stand in a hurricane.

This event was predictable, much of the suffering preventable, and now the American people - whose tax dollars will pay for this while they simultaneously get ass-raped at the pump - are being petitioned to send money, courtesy of Eric Clapton, the first of what's sure to be an endless line of Cause Rockers.

I saw a weeping woman two days ago complain that she voted for Bush and was disappointed that he didn't do enough fast enough, and she's right, but she got her $300 tax refund four years ago - I don't know what else she expected. Instead of feeding and clothing her kids with the money, she might have done what her illustrious born-again leader intended and put a downpayment on a bass boat. Or an ark.